Baldur's Gate 3 - Pre-Patch Announcement
 

A pre-patch announcement for Baldur's Gate 3's next patch talks about the next panel from Hell. Also it explains how to keep your playthrough for Patch 4 if thats your thing.

More information.

I just don't see a $60 game when I look at the vids and such.

Depends. It's usually agreed that the price should be proportional to the time spent.

If you buy it now, it's probably worth more than 60 <insert currency name here> because you'll spend so much time waiting for the release, watching panels from hell, reporting bugs and so on… :lol:

That's why they haven't reduced the price during EA.

How do you decide what a game is worth?

For me the main factors are
- expected fun
- expected length
- support for devs
- mood for that type of game


My expectations with this game are that I will have a lot of fun, it may be too long for me to finish, they are one of the only AAA turn based rpgs makers and Belgian so want to support. Not in the mood for it now but I did when I got it and played through for about 15 hours and have had quite a bit of fun already.

Don't mind crpgnut. He hasn't liked a party-based game since the M&M VI-VIII days. ;)

Larian's games do tend to drag on a bit. I usually feel like they're about 20% longer than they need to be.

Far too many announcement far too little progress. Pre-patch announcements you gotta be kidding , who needs that ? The game was supposed to be out by summer and now its delayed to next year at least.

Making games takes time. I'm starting to get tired of people complaining all the time about how long it's taking for games to release. God, just play one of the other 412124123 games around until it's launched.

I dont. It's the other games that are 50% shorter (Obsidian, you hear me?)

Never heard it was due this summer.

Anyway, they give a heads-up about the patch for people to select the branch appropriately, as said so many times before, but here they mainly announce the time of the streaming. Reading only the title usually isn't enough :p

I will never stop it's called the Early Access effect. Basically they announce a game to early and PR the hell out of it for more years that you will get tired of waiting & reading.

Let it be said for the millionth time I hate Early Access, no I loathe it.;)
The plan was one year of Early Access but it's looking like it will need more.

So 2022 but that's not set in stone. It may move to 2023. Seems the game is becoming more complicated and larger then Swen predicted when he announced it in 2019.

They released the EA in October 2020 and they said this EA could last one year, perhaps longer, but AFAIK they'd never committed to any release date or estimation.

Anyway, we know those things take longer more often than not. The pandemic certainly doesn't help. It's good that they don't rush to release it if they don't feel ready, I just hope they stick to some plan and don't change it all the time ;)

EA was announced in October 2020 but the game wasn't. Swen was doing interviews and previews back in 2019. They are opening and buying more studios as well.

If you remember from my earlier comments Larian is not a small indie developer anymore like in the past. They have hundreds of employees spread across multiple studios now.

I firmly believe large developers should not be able to use EA or crowdfunding.

It was not supposed to be out by summer. It was not supposed to be out at any particular time. They did not announce a release date. They've barely announced a release window even now.

Do you suppose you're seeing all the progress? I assure you, you're not. Better to just ignore the game completely until the 1.0 release if this pre-release stuff is aggravating.

I would rather they spend the time to make the game good then release it because of a bunch of whining users who are impatient and then when they release it before its done will complain endlessly about why they didn't spend more time polishing it :P

There are other things to do in life. Gheesh. Ignore it till its released and then play it. Why people obsess over deadlines is beyond me. Its done when its done. If you like early access play early access. If you don't like early access then ignore it and don't touch the game till its officially released.

Still only one act to play with, little changes worth of note, yes druids, with a bit of luck we may have half the classes of the basic manual in this hundred million budget game.
And yes it was supposed to release one year into "early access", so quite soon. The price tag being one of a finished game by the way. It's certainly not going to happen.

Meanwhile solasta was delivered exactly at the date scheduled, no delay . Oh wait no, in fact backers got a pre launch version it 2 weeks earlier and it exceeded my expectations.Thats a lot more professional, than all that PR and announcements.

Meanwhile people on the internet compare two different things and treat them the same. Yawn. Life goes on.

@Mortmal don't take it personally this site is full of pardon the term Larian fanboys.:biggrin:

Know what I predict a game with a decent Act one that falls flat in the middle.

Just like Original Sin 1&2.:p

It's quite possible a polished act 1 , and for sure this one will be thoroughly tested. Cause there's nothing else to play , reviewers wont go past that, and the fanboys will be happy no matter what ,accepting everything , as clunky and broken it could be. If ever sven personally talk to them they will be in heaven.
And dont you dare compare another 5E turn based crpg with their beloved cult title, totally impossible to compare!

I like Solasta pretty well, though I thought the verticality was just plain ass goofy. I also loved Legendary Journeys, though admittedly it is very like MM6-8. However, your point mostly stands.

I generally don't enjoy party-based where the devs create your companions. I generally don't like "woke" type companions and generally get some juvenile enjoyment killing them over and over. I did like Lohse though, but Larian's games suck ass after act 1 in each. Last good Larian game was Ego Draconis but even it failed after becoming a dragon. Great game through Broken Valley, good game through the Tower stuff, and boring as hell after that. I loved Divine Divinity start to finish; basically before Sven became the Todd Howard of Larian.

Just my opinion. I'm a single-player single-character type for sure. I don't even like games like Witcher or HZD since I don't pick my role. The game picks it and I hated Witcher 2/3's Geralt and Alloy. They're just not the type of personality that jives with an absolute nut ;) I liked Geralt in Witcher 1.

For me the factors are:
- did I like recent previous games by same dev, if applicable--no in the case of Sven
- expected length is good, I agree
- I don't worry about supporting big studios at all
- mood is great too
- I'm American so could care less about European devs, not a plus or minus. I really like Encased and it's Russian, I think…

P.S. I have no idea if there are game developers from Missouri ;)

BG3 is the first Larian game I have ever really liked. DDOS2 wasn't too bad but it was way too long and I never finished it. I rage quit at the 95% mark I was so tired of the horrible turn based combat. I only played one of their other past games and only got 30% through it. I am judging the game solely with my play time with it, which is extensive at this point, and not on who made it. I didn't expect to even like BG3 based on my past experience with Larian and not really into their humor.

Not a fan of TB combat but I still like BG3 in spite of that as its a good game. I have over 100 hours play time with it so far so comfortable with my experience with it.

Of course the rest of the game could suck or fall flat. I hope that isn't the case considering how good the first part is. I won't know till I play the full game though so not going to try and conjecture about something that is neither released nor played at this point.

Solasta is good for what it is but it is also a different game and situation than BG3 or Pathfinder WORT for that matter.

I base whether I like a game on how fun it is to play, the rest really doesn't matter. BG3 for me is a lot of fun to play. Solasta is meh - okay but nothing special for me personally.

Aren't we supposed to get advanced notification of a pending pre-patch announcement? Looks like their pre-PR department really dropped the ball on this one.

Well, you do, but doubt it's your genre :D


https://www.goodfirms.co/game-develo…anies/st-louis

It's not comparable, the scale is completely different, and the budget was very limited in the case of Solasta so they had to be on target. But they made very smart decisions and were very good at defining the scope, I've always admired them for that.

Solasta was delivered on time, but it still has many bugs and serious instabilities like crashes and GPU overstress. This is not exceptional in game releases, but we should take that into account. Better for a company which can afford it, like Larian Studios, to take the necessary time and avoid it.

Don't expect much more content in BG3, the idea of an EA is not to spoil the whole game. As for the classes, we have more than half of them, and they are adding all of the "basic manual" - the Player's Handbook.

As said before, there never has been any promises, except one of superb quality, so it's useless to keep whining about the release date and the content. They said recently the date would more likely be end 2022 or 2023, we shouldn't expect anything earlier.

I completely agree on the financial part, especially the EA at full price which I find dishonest. A crowdfunding would be very odd; as you said, they obviously don't need to secure that.

But they do like to develop with the feedback of their customers, even if they don't interact with them very well. At least that's what I understand. So how should they do? Would you be fine with an Early Access with a reduced price or extra content, for example?

Perhaps a closed beta with a limited of participants would be better, at a reduced price. But Larian Studios is all about freedom and fun, it doesn't match their personality. Besides, they like a large number of participants for their stats-driven decisions.

I get what you mean, but I'm convinced it's not (only) about money in this case.

As said in the other thread, why don't you just stop reading stuff? You're making it tiresome for yourself. As an adult you can decide on your own what to read and watch. Larian and Owlcat aren't responsible for that.

I like what I've seen but I'm not following too closely. I'm sure the game will be solid and worth the money in the end. It'd be worth the money now if I wasn't so backlogged and already having so many great games and often too little time.

I'll stop bitching once Early Access is dead. It started out as a good tool for small developers, but like everything that was once good it got used & perverted by greed.

Anyway my reply was more for GabrielMP_19 and his sanctimonious post.;)

Hardly any bugs on solasta, could finish it with ease even with the pre launch version, it's quasi pristine compare to any other pc release of late.If its on the gamepass it means it pass micrsofot testing as well, so its not that bad . Not a single crash for me during the game not once, i check the pc temp , had no problem of overheating or GPU overstress.
Not saying it cant happen, there's so many pc configs but open any game forum and you'll find issues like that. Maybe you need to force vsync on or something.
As for the scale , yes the budget is very small , yes its not open world but they still deliver a 40 hours game for one playthrough, it turns out the combat system is deeper than BG3 I see no mention BG3 will include everything solasta have. They even homewbrew very good subclasses, and the light and darkness system.
What i see on larian side is ton of communication, even hyping patches, but still one act to play .And now they are going to film themselves in an escape game ,i get almost star citizen vibes there… It was 60$ like a full game , i expected it to be ready or almost, one year of wait sounds reasonable, that was announced.

What is even the purpose of early access there ? They have the budget, several studios , probably a good deal with stadia , rumors for semi exclusives deals are the like of 100 millions $.
People are far too complacent with them, thats not good work ethics. They are no longer the small indies that could require a little bit of help and free testing.

I've followed this game since the beginning to catch and report issues, most of the bugs that were in the first release of EA are still there, and more. There are still an awful lot of them, though most are not game breaking, the majority is QoL or problems with the mechanics and rules.
Overstress occurs on most RTX cards, we suspect it's due to a specific change of Unity version. Unfortunately they're ill-equipped to reproduce the problem.
I like Solasta very much, but it doesn't stop me from being objective.
Deeper, certainly not, but they are more faithful to D&D 5E, even if they're limited to the SRD. BTW, it's not that they even have homebrew classes, they had to because of this limitation. For the BG3 classes, just check Larian's website or the many interviews and dev updates, they mentioned several times that all the PH classes would be there.
Solasta has much more reduced mechanics, settings and graphics, but it's normal seeing the scale of the project. It will still be very fun once they've ironed out the bugs.
We are probably not talking about the same game ;) Larian does not communicate very often in comparison to most others, actually, they should do it more often. And again, EA will limit the scope, it's normal to have only one act, they all do that.

Hyping patches and Star Citizen vibes, really? :rolleyes:
As said above, Larian Studios like to develop with feedback. If you don't want EA, just don't buy it.

I really think you should stop here. We get that you're frustrated because you want to play it now. But as I said, they were always very clear that it would take time.

I think Early Access has replaced Kickstarter to some degree. I like it but just like Kickstarter it is buyer beware. You are taking a chance on the game becoming something greater. For the developer it is a chance to gain access to a wider audience and refine their game with steady income behind them (if their game isn't utter shite). Most would have had to scale back and release bare bones "full release" versions without it. Some go in well prepared and with a solid plan and others…its an imperfect universe. I'd rather it exist than not otherwise we would of missed on some bonafide classics.

We are announcing a prepiss on our TrashGoodForNothing RPG because sales are down and the boss needs another private jet.

What’s dishonest about a full price EA game?

You are getting the full game at release. I could see the outrage if you paid full price for EA and then again at release. You are basically paying nothing for EA and full price for the released game. You are free to 100% ignore EA and buy at or anytime after release. I just can’t find anything dishonest about it.

No one except maybe the most diehard Larian fans would buy an incomplete act 1 of BG3 for full price. You get the full game plus they ability to play early which if your excited about the game could be seen as additional value not less.

You are exaggerating by looking only at patch notes.
I have 40 hours into it and didn't experience any bug.

Maybe dishonest is too strong a word? In any case, buying EA is 1) taking some risk about the final quality or even the possibility of a non-release, 2) paying years earlier than delivery, and 3) often associated with requests for feedback and bug report. Each of those should be compensated in some way, either with a reduced price or with extra content.

The fact you can play it earlier doesn't offer enough of a compensation IMO, because the experience is lower and it somewhat ruins the experience with the final release (by spoiling a good part of it, and requiring yet another replay of act I).

I used "dishonest" because they're counting on people to still buy at full price, because of their reputation. And this gamble has worked. I was willing to buy it too, knowing perfectly this wasn't a good deal. But yes, maybe the word is a bit strong, I'm not very good at gradation :)
Since I must repeat it once more, I have been playing it from the start, and again at release, I'm not basing my statements on forum posts (I suppose that's what you meant instead of patch notes) but on personal experience which correlates with others' reports.

Those are facts, there's simply no denying it. You can pick a good number of those bugs and easily reproduce them.

If you have 40 hours, you must have seen some of them or you were not attentive. Nothing wrong or negative with that, as I said most were not major bugs. And I admit I am more attentive to them because I used to report bugs during the EA, it's disconcerting to see they're still there after all this time. The reason, I think, is they're simply overwhelmed with the amount of feedback and have a poor methodology (but hey, it's their first game, it's normal).

The big instability issues depend on the hardware, good for you if you didn't have to suffer those. I sure hope it's not impacting too many players, after all I spent enough time praising this game on EA ;) But one has to acknowledge the flaws too.

Of course i am frustrated at the delays , who isnt ? As for feedback processing , you can give your feedback and they will explain you why its not possible to include it or too late to do so .If it's about cosmetics or romance it will however.

You contradict yourself, if solasta is more faithfull to 5E then by default it's deeper. 5e is already not the most complex system ever…Larian's philosophy was cutting out what doesnt work in a video game. Solasta proves everything in 5E can work in a video game.
Even when trying the first demo it was obvious there was something more. Remember the use of verticality the spiders ambush, crawling on walls , skirmishing back and forth , frightened if you had a torch. Advantages and disadvantages according the light sources . That was a wonder to behold, and full game expanded even on that.
Boss fights were better handled with legendary actions, better use of terrain and their fly abiltities when they had. Vampires fights are masterfully executed.
BG3 isnt bad , but i think tactical adventure is working harder than larian.

*fetches popcorn*

Oh yes, bitching about EA makes sense. Or at least it makes sense to dislike EA. But I don't think that bitching about it will make it go away.

My advice was just to ignore the buzz that comes with EA.

I don't think I could play something to the 95% mark and then not finish it. That said, I'm surprised you stuck with D:OS 2 that long. I rage quite while still in the first chapter.

I was able to make it through D:OS 1 despite the silly story and characters, but the combat wasn't nearly as tedious in that game.

I'm consistently amazed at the high marks those games get from reviewers and how many people seem to think they're classics. I think they're above average in some aspects, but they're nowhere near what I consider great games.

yeah like that worked out so good the last time that line was used…:))